Preserving forests means culture change
Authors: None The Lancet Planetary Health
Journal: The Lancet Planetary Health (2023)

Halting global deforestation is a cornerstone of climate change mitigation and securing natural biodiversity for the future. Healthy primary forests store and sequester large amounts of carbon, have huge ecological importance, and support the lives and livelihoods of billions of people, but deforestation continues at pace globally and land-use change contributes 12–20% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. The international community has set ambitious goals to end and reverse deforestation by 2030; with a leading policy lever being direct payments to countries, communities, or landowners to leave forested land intact. However, a new report from The Energy Transition Commission, a think tank, suggests that stopping deforestation in tropical regions through direct payments could be substantially more costly than previously estimated and financially unsupportable in the long term, without wider societal changes. Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation or REDD policies encompass payments under private carbon markets and offsetting services and country-to-country agreements. The total money from all public and private schemes might be around $2·3 billion annually; however, the Commission report estimates that the actual cost of direct payments to stop deforestation in the most threatened tropical regions could be from $130 billion to $900 billion annually. Maintaining this level of direct payment in the long term would be unsustainable. Instead, the report argues that $130 billion of finance per year is needed up to 2030, as a stop gap measure to halt tropical deforestation, and at the same time to invest in longer term solutions, including changing consumer demand, developing more environmentally friendly business models, and strengthening laws and enforcement to protect forest. Planetary health researchers have important roles to play in understanding, quantifying, and communicating the value of intact, biodiverse forest for human health and wellbeing, and in advancing understanding of how social, cultural, and economic incentives can be changed to drive more sustainable systems and choices. The single largest driver of tropical deforestation and degradation is land clearance for agricultural commodities. The creation of pasture for beef alone accounts for 40% of tropical deforestation. If the consumption of animal foods continues to grow alongside global incomes, in line with current trends, an additional 400 million hectares of wild ecosystem could be converted by 2050. Research and policy efforts to transition higher income populations toward more sustainable diets will be vital to reduce deforestation. On tackling illegal deforestation, there has been some positive news. The re-election of Lula da Silva as Brazilian presented in January 2023 came with pledges to end illegal logging and curb deforestation. This is a welcome change after deforestation reached a 15-year peak in the Amazon following the anti-conservation leadership of former president, Jair Bolsonaro. Policing deforestation effectively and upholding the rights of indigenous peoples—who steward 80% of remaining biodiversity—is difficult and must be combined with eliminating the demand for the products of illegal deforestation. However, the efficacy of voluntary actions has been mixed. Many large financial firms and institutions, for example, remain invested in companies whose products are linked to illegal deforestation, despite signing pledges to eliminate deforestation from their investments. On 19th April 2023 the EU Parliament voted to adopt a law to prevent the sale of any products in the bloc linked to deforestation or degradation of natural forest. Such laws could force higher standards, but scrutiny and pressure will have to come from all parts of society. In the healthcare and research communities, providers and institutions should increasingly ensure that their procurement removes deforestation related products from supply chains. Employers and pension funds should be encouraged to make their practices and investments consistent with ending global deforestation and with the scientific evidence around the health and societal benefits of doing so. Once lost, primary forests, especially in tropical areas, are difficult to recover. Payments to preserve forests are an important part of the solution, particularly in the short term, but they are no silver bullet for forest protection. We need a wider cultural shift toward recognizing the full value of intact forests and other natural ecosystems; this will be hard won, but is vital if we are to stop undermining our own wellbeing.